


Clockwork

by gladdecease



Category: Heroes (TV), Watchmen (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Author's Favorite, Community: comment_fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-26
Updated: 2009-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon Osterman returns to the universe some would call his home fifteen years after he leaves it, and finds an interesting young clockmaker in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://community.livejournal.com/comment_fic/33478.html?thread=6665670#t6665670) in response to [bloodyfire](http://bloodyfire.livejournal.com)'s prompt: Watchmen/Heroes, Jon/Syler, clockwork

**for doctor manhattan, all times are in present tense**

Jon returns to the universe some would call his home fifteen years after he leaves it. His attempts to create life are successful; now he leaves it to its own means for a time. He is the God who winds up a clock and leaves it running. He will check back in six years and one day to see how the clock has run.

This Earth changes quite a lot in the time since he leaves. The electric car flops as a product, without Jon constantly supplying more lithium for the batteries. The ones that exist run well and continue to run well for decades to come, but are so highly valued as to be priceless.

This is just one thing that changes.

Another is an unexpected leap in genetic mutation appearing in the population. Jon is aware of its existence in the 1960s; he is aware of it in the 1980s; it is now that the rest of the world is aware of it, and it is because of Adrian.

The psychics are mad, of course. Telepaths, precognates, clairsentients; all are the same. All are insane. But there are others with powers that are sane. Non-psychic powers. Physical attributes that defy laws of physics Jon leaves behind years ago; flight, pyrokinesis, shapeshifting.

None of them resemble Jon in appearance or ability, but he sees in the world a thought process he remembers. If there is one man with great powers, he belongs to the government, he is their agent. If there are thousands of men with small powers, they are enemies of the government, they must be contained.

He goes to New York, to where the monstrosity appears in 1985. There are still evil thoughts resonating from the spot, and it is marked as a memorial. Jon wonders how they can erect it when no worker will come near it, and sees Adrian, remotely controlled helicopters.

It is not true that no one will approach it, Jon realizes. There is a man standing on the other side of it in six years, watching him without eyes.

Six years from now, Jon knows him as Sylar, a minor terrorist and mass-murderer with both psychic and physical powers, supposedly driven insane by Adrian's device but hidden rather than embarrass his family. Jon talks to him about clocks, about Deist theory. He asks him about winding up clocks and letting them run, and when Sylar has no answer, Jon thanks him and leaves.

Tomorrow Jon knows him as Gabriel Gray, a clockmaker. He walks into his shop disguised as a normal man, watches Gabriel work on a German watch. The brand is Sylar. Gabriel smiles at him, tells him about the fascinating structure of clocks. Jon expresses a nostalgic wish to have learned how to make clocks. Gabriel sympathizes with his father removing opportunities, though their fathers decisions oppose one another.

Gabriel's empathic ability activates, partially mimics Jon's own abilities, and his innate understand of the world increases exponentially. Jon watches as Gabriel completes more of the Sylar watch in half an hour than he does in the years he works on it before this meeting. As he works, Gabriel begins to feel unsatisfied with the life his father left to him. He longs for his childhood dreams of becoming something special. Jon thanks him for the conversation and leaves.

Jon is responsible for the creation of Sylar, he knows. And because he knows, there is nothing to do to stop it.

He leaves the universe some might call his home, goes to another universe, starts life in it the same way as his first attempt.

If you wind up two identical clocks and let them run, will they run in exactly the same way? It is one of very few things Jon does not know.

He asks Sylar about this in six years, and then he finds out for himself.


End file.
